A Birthday Present to Ryou
by candyazngirl
Summary: September 2nd is Ryou's birthday. The day was passing so slowly as he had nothing special planned, but he was surprised by a gift from his counterpart. Dedicated to Ryou for his actual birthday.


**A/N: This is a birthday gift for Ryou for September 2****nd****. Happy birthday!**

* * *

Happy Birthday

"Oh, today's your birthday?" Yugi asked his white haired friend. "I didn't know that."

"It's nothing special," Ryou said as he slowly cleaned up his things from the desk. It was time to go home since the school bell had just rung. Many students already rushed to the exit as they didn't want or need to spend another second in the undesirable room.

"Nothing special?! It's your birthday, Bakura!" Yugi said as he got his things as well. Joey and Tristan were waiting for him by the door. Neither of them knew about the Bristish boy's birthday. Tea was right beside them, waiting for their precious friend. They had all planned to go to sing some karaoke, though none of them could actually sing professionally. It would actually defeat the purpose of going if they could sing that well. Karaoke was a time to have fun with friends and act silly.

"No, no," Ryou said, shaking his head. "You already planned something, Yugi. I don't want to be a burden."

Truthfully, even though it was his birthday, he didn't actually want to spend it with the others. He wanted to go home and relax, since he had a pretty long day. The minute hand of school clock didn't want to go any faster, making the classes drag on forever. Strangely, the Ring had been quiet for a while now, so Ryou wanted the chance to relax before the Evil Spirit of the Ring took his chance to take over his body.

"It's just one more person!" Yugi argued. "I'll pay for you."

"No, Yugi," Ryou said with a soft smile, though it was forced and tired. "My father is coming home for my birthday. I want to spend some time with him before he goes off back to Egypt."

That was a lie. His father wasn't coming home. He almost never came home. Ever since his wife and only daughter were killed in a car accident, he couldn't bare spending one day in an almost empty house. It just held too many memories for him. He wouldn't sell the house, because of those memories, but he would also not spend one day in it. He dove straight into his work. The sensation of finding out artifacts numbed the pain of losing his family and the slight regret he had for pushing his only living family away from him. Ryou was silently glad that he didn't become a drunkard that didn't have anything to do in his life now that the love of his life was gone.

Yugi looked at Ryou with a worried expression. Ryou wondered if he knew that he was lying, but the other simply smiled and nodded. He wished his friend a good bye and a happy birthday before heading off to have fun with his friends.

"Thank you," Ryou said softly, noticing that he was the only one left in the classroom. He sighed softly as he continued to stuff his books into his bag.

Yugi was the closest friend he had other than Marik. The Egyptian had moved back to Egypt after Battle City Tournament, but he had kept in touched with Ryou through the internet. It was amusing to talk to him sometimes, because the other would sometimes have to ask whether he's talking to Ryou or Bakura. It was already hard for people to tell the difference between the two in real life so Ryou could understand the confusion when the Spirit of the Ring would like to surf the internet for information about torture or other devices.

Ryou was still lonely. True, he was rather attractive, so that would bring the company of some girls that weren't interested in getting to know him. There were Joey, Tristan, and Tea, but those three barely talked to Ryou. Whenever Marik was asleep in Egypt or Yugi was off with his friends. He was alone. He's been alone for most of his life.

"Amane, I wish you were here," Ryou would say into the numbing sound of the rain. He opened his umbrella tried to shield the water from the materials that he needed for school.

Amane, the sister of Ryou, was long dead. There were times that Ryou would think about his younger sister and feel a presence when he was alone. He knew it was her. This wasn't his imagination that stirred something because he deeply missed her. Ryou knew that there was really a solid chance of her spirit watching over him, because otherwise he'd be denying the existence of Bakura. The Spirit of the Ring was certainly real.

Ryou took out the Millennium Ring and traced the craving in it. It could be the curiosity that he inherited from his father, but he couldn't help but to wonder how old the other was exactly. What was it like for Bakura during his time when he had a birthday? Did he spend it with family?

_The earliest memory of my family is how they died. I don't think I ever spent a birthday with anyone actually._

The sudden voice shocked Ryou as he looked around to see if anyone was looking at him. He rushed into the house and locked the door. He pulled the Millennium Ring so it was eye level. That was just how he found it comfortable to talk to the other.

"Really? What happened?" Ryou asked.

Out came out the Spirit of the Ring from the confines of the golden item. Ryou looked at him with shock. This was actually the first time that the other had shown himself like this. They would always talk through their mind link, but Bakura would never actually appear in front of Ryou in his ghostly form like the Pharaoh would do with Yugi.

"You probably don't want to know," Bakura said.

"No, tell me," Ryou insisted. He wanted to know. He wanted to know a little more about his other half. He wanted to know why he did these evil things to everyone else. A real villain would have his reasons. Even some had reasons that were understandable to a point. However, Bakura never really voiced the reason why he wanted to kill Ryou's friend Yugi.

"My home town was destroyed," Bakura said as he looked away. "Look, I don't want to talk about it."

Ryou frowned at this, but it was something that Bakura never told him before. He decided to leave it alone for now since the other didn't want to talk about his past. Ryou understood that everyone had a few things that they didn't want to talk about in their history.

"So, how do you celebrate this birthday?" Bakura asked as he looked at Ryou. "From the movies we watched, a birthday party would have a lot of people at them, but not even your father is here. It seems more sad than happy."

Ryou blinked. This was different from the regular agenda of revenge.

"W-well," Ryou stuttered, not knowing how to explain it to the other since he never spent a single birthday with anyone since Amane and his mother died. He tried to think back to when he was a child. "When I was younger, my family would go to somewhere I like or do something that I like."

"Can we do that every day?" Bakura asked. "Or is it something different."

"It's different," Ryou said. "We'd try to make every birthday different and special. That was before…you know."

Bakura should know. Even though Ryou didn't start knowing he was there until Yugi had gained the Millennium Puzzle, he had the Ring since he was a young boy. It was his comfort item since it was always with him, even when no one wanted to play with him because he was strange and different.

"Yeah, well," Bakura trailed off, not knowing what to say. "Then we'll do something together."

"What can we do together?" Ryou asked, making a slight pout. "You don't even have a body of your own and if I talk to you, I'm sure people will think I'm insane."

"We'll think of something."

"Well do you want to go somewhere?"

"Isn't this _your_ birthday?" Bakura asked, raising an eyebrow. "We're supposed to be doing things that you like."

"Well, I don't really care what we do," Ryou said softly. "So I thought we could do something that you like to do."

Truthfully, Ryou wanted to know more about his counterpart. He knew that he liked card games and meat dishes. He also liked table RPGs, but maybe he liked something else amongst those things.

"I don't want to go anywhere with that rain out there," Bakura said as he crossed his arms. "What if you get sick in the middle of my next big plan."

Yet again, the Spirit of the Ring was obsessing over his revenge. Ryou wished that the other would change, but he laughed. Somehow, this made him feel less alone. Now that he thought about it, the other was always with him so he was never truly alone. Normal people would find that creepy, but Ryou thought it was nice to have someone like that.

"Well, maybe we can do something indoor," Ryou said as he put his things on the couch. "Like maybe watch a movie or have a special dinner."

"A special dinner? I have an idea," Bakura said.

With those words, Ryou's vision blacked out.

* * *

When Ryou woke up, he found himself in his warm bed. He grabbed his alarm clock at see what time it was and it was only 7 PM, but was it still September 2nd? Ryou didn't know. He felt the soreness in his muscles and knew that Bakura had taken over his body.

He must have used his body to take his revenge or something along those lines. Ryou knew that he shouldn't have suggested they do something that his counterpart liked. He got up and walked over to the kitchen and noticed a strange light. He turned his head and noticed that there was a birthday cake with candle burning there.

"Dad?" He asked, looking around.

"He's not here," Bakura said as he slipped out of the Millennium Ring. "This is a birthday cake right?"

"Y-yes, it is," Ryou said. "H-how? I thought you'd be…"

"Taking my revenge out on Pharaoh?" Bakura asked. "If I did play a shadow game with him, then I wouldn't have time to get you a cake in time. I wanted it to be a surprise."

"Yeah," the other said softly. He went over to the cake. "It's a very nice surprise."

He looked at the small presents that were gathered around the table. He looked at them and noticed that they weren't all from Bakura.

"What? How did you get these?" Ryou asked.

"Blow out your candles before the wax get on the frosting," Bakura said as he sat on the other end of the table with his arms crossed. "And I want a taste of it, so we're switching once you eat the first slice."

Ryou nodded slowly, thinking that he was asleep and this was all a dream. He leaned over to the candles and blew them out. He closed his eyes and made a wish. He smiled softly, as he didn't get the chance to do something like this for years.

"So, now you'll tell me about where you got these presents?" Ryou asked, holding one that was from Joey, for some reason. "Did you fake their handwriting to make me feel better?"

"No," Bakura said with a scowl. "Why would I go out of my way to make you happy? When I was purchasing the cake, those _friends_ of yours had come up with me with last minute presents. I was acting like you so I had to _thank_ them. You owe me one."

Ryou blinked. He smiled and looked at the presents slowly. He noticed that there was one from his father. He grabbed it and looked at Bakura with big eyes, hoping that his father actually dropped by to give him this and was hiding somewhere in the room.

"It was in the mail," Bakura said and frowned as he saw his counterpart's face fall in disappointment. "So pick one, opening the presents or eating the cake."

"I want to save the best for last," Ryou said as he opened the nearest present. It was from Joey. It wasn't anything special since it was last minute, but it was a crudely drawn picture of thumbs up from him wrapped around a bag of candy. Though it was small, Ryou was happy.

He moved to Tristan's, then Tea's. Those two didn't know much about Ryou and got some things that he didn't really care about that much like chocolate or a little small plush keychain of a figure from a generic anime show. Ryou looked at Yugi's present and opened it slowly, knowing that the other had gotten him something more special. There was a small figure that was from Monster World, but it was a keychain. He smiled as he picked it up.

He went over to his father's present and it was a letter telling him how he was sorry that he couldn't be there for his birthday. There was a list of excuses with why he couldn't go. He sighed and looked into the box.

"Hey, this is strange," Ryou said as he reached into the box to pull out a cloak of some sort. It wasn't black, and he was grateful for that since he didn't enjoy black like his counterpart did, but it was bright red.

"It looks just like the cloak that I wore back when I was alive," Bakura said as he floated over to him. He looked at the fabric with some fondness in his eyes. Ryou looked at the other.

"We should go to Egypt sometime together," Ryou said softly. "I'll use the excuse that I want to visit my father and we can explore the place. It might be refreshing compared to seeing pavement over here in Domino City."

Bakura looked at him and then floated over to the other side. His expression was unreadable, but Ryou took the silence as him being happy. If Bakura really didn't want to go then he'd be protesting verbally until the other had agreed with him.

"What? You even got me a gift?" Ryou said as he looked at the present in front of him that was crudely wrapped. He could have sworn that the other was blushing, but it was hard to tell in his ghostly form. He looked at the gift and opened it gently. Inside was something that really hit his childhood memories. He picked up the decoration that was made of glass. It was from a show that he used to watch with Amane. They had talked about how they wanted to get this decoration before when they were children.

"You were always there, weren't you?" Ryou asked.

"Don't ask something you already know, landlord," Bakura scowled. "I want to taste this cake that you like so much, go ahead and cut it already."

Ryou smiled and did what the other said. He reached for the knife and slowly cut a slice for himself and for Bakura.

"What did you wish for?" Bakura asked, curious as he didn't catch it through the mind link at all.

"It's a secret," Ryou said gently.


End file.
